For more than 50 years, Torontonians have strolled past Henry Moore’s bronze sculpture in Nathan Phillips Square humming a Murray McLauchlan song. Now the Toronto singer and songwriter is taking that song, and 21 more of his best loved classics, back into his own hands. ‘ReCovered,’ a new double album of fresh recordings of the songs that made him one of Canada’s most cherished songwriters, is out now on Borealis Music.
The project began with a loss. When the catalogue holding McLauchlan’s historic master recordings was sold without his consultation, he decided to do what a growing number of artists around the world have done in recent years: record his songs all over again. What started as a way to reclaim his own work quickly became something far more meaningful. Returning to the studio, McLauchlan found new emotional depth in songs he first recorded in his twenties, now sung with the wisdom of decades of lived experience. He describes the result as both a reclamation and a celebration.
McLauchlan co-produced ‘ReCovered’ with multi-instrumentalist Vezi Tayyeb at Toronto’s Kensington Sound Studios between January and July 2026. Tayyeb plays piano, B3 organ, electric guitar and percussion. The band also features drummer Al Cross, pedal steel and dobro player Burke Carroll and bassist Victor Bateman, with McLauchlan on acoustic and electric guitar, piano, and vocals. Two old friends from McLauchlan’s songwriter supergroup Lunch at Allen’s, Marc Jordan and Cindy Church, add background vocals.
The track list reads like a road map through Canadian music history. “Down by the Henry Moore” topped Canada’s country and adult contemporary charts in 1975, turning a public sculpture outside Toronto City Hall into a landmark of Canadian song. “The Farmer’s Song,” his JUNO winning 1973 tribute to the people who feed the country, became a staple in Canadian classrooms and even turned up on Sharon, Lois & Bram’s Elephant Show. “On the Boulevard,” “Whispering Rain,” “Hard Rock Town,” “Never Did Like That Train,” “Try Walkin’ Away” and “Sweepin’ the Spotlight Away” all return in vivid new versions recorded with today’s technology and a lifetime of perspective.
Some of these songs were famous before McLauchlan ever made a record of his own. American folk star Tom Rush recorded “Child’s Song” in the late 1960s, introducing the young Torontonian’s writing to audiences across North America, and the song resurfaced decades later on NBC’s This Is Us. “Honky Red” was sung live by Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Bobby Neuwirth, and more recently by American jam band Widespread Panic. “No Change in Me” has been recorded by John McDermott and The Ennis Sisters. “Swingin’ On A Star” shares its name with the CBC Radio program McLauchlan hosted from 1989 to 1994, a weekly celebration of songwriting that drew more than 750,000 listeners every Saturday.
McLauchlan’s story is woven through the history of Canadian music. Born in Paisley, Scotland and raised in suburban Toronto, he started playing Yorkville coffeehouses at 17. He went on to share the bill with Jim Croce and John Prine at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and famously gave up half of his set at the Mariposa Folk Festival so Joni Mitchell could play. He signed with True North Records in 1970, released ‘Song from the Street’ the following year and became one of the defining voices of the 1970s, winning 11 JUNO Awards from 23 nominations.
The honours have never stopped. He’s a Member of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. He’s been inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and, in 2022, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, presented to him by Gordon Lightfoot. A licensed commercial pilot, he flew a Cessna 185 floatplane across the country for the CBC special Floating Over Canada with Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ian Tyson and Levon Helm. He’s written a memoir, ‘Getting Out of Here Alive,’ exhibited his paintings, served on the SOCAN board fighting for songwriters’ rights and championed music in palliative and dementia care with the Room 217 Foundation.
Through it all, the songs have stayed the same, and now they’re his again. Half a century after he first sang about meeting down by the Henry Moore, Murray McLauchlan has gone home to the music that made him and brought it back to life.
‘ReCovered’ Track Listing:
CD 1
“Down By The Henry Moore”
“On The Boulevard”
“Whispering Rain”
“You Need A New Lover Now”
“Never Did Like That Train”
“Honky Red”
“Try Walkin’ Away”
“As Lonely As You”
“Brown-Eyed Man”
“Hard Rock Town”
“So I Lost Your Love”
CD 2
“Child’s Song”
“Maybe Tonight”
“Love With A Capital L”
“Farmer’s Song”
“If The Wind Could Blow My Troubles Away”
“No Change In Me”
“Where The Sweet Waters Flow”
“Swingin’ On A Star”
“Winter”
“Don’t Put Your Faith in Men”
“Sweepin’ The Spotlight Away”
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